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Secondly, for those who are old, injured or otherwise infirm: screw a hand drive for your lug nuts. Go to Harbor Freight (Yes, Harbor Freight) and get their “HD” electric impact gun which they advertise as a “18 Volt 1/2 In. Cordless Variable Speed Impact Wrench”. $129 and it does last, quite well actually. Tough as nails really. No longer is that over-torqued lug nut a problem. My 83 year old father can take such an over tightened lug off in seconds with that tool. Thicker than a 4-way lug wrench but smaller in the X and Y dimensions.

Third, if you have a vacuum sealer for food it works very well for clothing and blankets. The vacuum sealer will smash them down to 15-25% of their original volume. I keep a set of clothing, gloves, cold weather hats etc for myself and my wife and it all fits under the front seat of my WRX with room to spare. It works well for anything that’s light but voluminous.

With road flares, check you local and state laws. There was a time here in Colorado where legit road flares were illegal because some idiot started a major fire with one. The cops didn’t really care if you used them (safely) but they were nearly impossible to acquire and were impossible to acquire legally. (Make friends with the guy at your local NAPA/AutoZone/O’Reilly’s/whatever.) Should this sort of law come up you may have to buy a case of flares like I did. Go in on this with friends if possible. It’s not expensive but a case of flares is 12 boxes of three flares. That’s a lot of flares. They don’t “go bad” but… well it’s a lot of flares.

I also highly recommend a camp stove that runs off Iso-Pro fuel canisters. Even if you have AAA you can be on the side of the road for hours in some cases. Nothing improves your spirits in that case like a hot meal. A quality camp stove gives you a lot of options in terms of the food you can choose to carry with you. Something like the MSR Pinnacle Dualist cook system might just be the best $65 you spend if you get stuck on the side of the road for a long period of time. If nothing else you can make hot coffee if you bring a long a French Press.

Organize your stuff. I drive a 2016 WRX and people constantly tell me “You can’t fit a lot of survival stuff in there”. BS. A Smittybilt G.E.A.R. system on the driver’s seat, a big map bag on the passenger’s seat, proper use of the space under the front seats, a box in the trunk and you can fit a HECK of a lot of stuff in that car and still have room for four people and a reasonable amount of luggage. Add roof bars and… well damn.

For those in colder environments:

Candles. 4 hour+ emergency candles. A single one of these things can raise the interior temperature of a mid-sized sedan by 14 degrees Fahrenheit, which doesn’t seem like much until the interior of your car is 10F. Suddenly 24F seems like a better idea and it’s a temperature that is survivable for a significantly longer period of time.

Do you have what you need to prevail?

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